ISN'T WAR EASY

insensitive words and thoughtless acts ,
Accusations without the facts,
A spiteful Tongue ,a twisted thought
and selfish deeds of every sort-
Isn't war easy?

Envy, hatred, fear and greed ;
the bitterness of hearts that bleed;
intolerance found around every corner,
The anguish and pain of the tearful mourner-
Isn't war easy?

The absence if loving, kindness and sharing;
The longing for solace , peace and caring.
Argumentd wilfully playing their part
Rending, tearing and breaking the heart-
Isn't war easy?

Covetousness, jealousy, mercenary gain;
Mindless acts that are clearly insane ;
Malice, cruelty, meanness and vice
And reaching the top at any price-
Isn't war easy?

Dictatorial behaviour, virulent plots,
The fanatical beliefs if a fee despots;
Hostility, racism, evil, disdain,
The simplicity and ease in which to cause pain-
Isn't war easy ?

Uncaring, unkindly, indifferent with life-
the law of the gun, the rule of the knife:
callousness, malevolence, enmity, hate,
A whim to destroy and to devastate-
Isn't war easy?

Benevolence, big-heartednesd, charity, a smile:
Compassions and kindliness, caring awhile,
Warmth, love, tenderness , concern,
sensitivity, generosity, when will we learn-
That peace is much easier?

If the heart touches a thought
And the thought touches a mind
And a mind touches a generation
and a generation reaches across the planet
Then the miraculous will come
and laughter, joy and kindness will abound
For we will at last have found ....,
PEACE

A Pure Heart

A pure heart and good will ! The one foundation of every spiritual state! The pure heart could well say to every soul: " look at me carefully. It is I who generate the love which always chooses the better part. I produce that mind but effective fear which arouses such a dread of wrong-doing that it can easily be avoided. I lmpart that excellent understanding which reveals the greatness of God and the merit of virtue . And it is all I who causes that passionate and holy yearning which keeps the soul resolute in virtue and in expectation of God."
Yes, O Pure Heart, you can invite everyone to gather round you and enrich themselves with your inexhaustible treasures. There is no spiritual practice, no path of holiness, which does not find it's source in you .

The secret fire

Represent incessantly the universe to yourself as a single living being composed of one sort of matter, and of one soul.This is how all that passes in it is referred to one principle of feeling. This is how one single impulse makes the whole move, and this is why all it's products are an effect of a number of causes. O Universe! O Nature! You are the source of all, the ultimate terms of all. The same species of soul has been assigned to all animals, and the same intellectual soul to all reasoning beings, just as all terrestrial bodies are made of the same terrestrial matter , are as all that sees and breathes, sees but one and the same light, and breathes but one and the same air.

The light of the sun is one, though we see it dipersed on Walls, on mountains, and on a thousand differentd objects. Although divided into thousand of separate bodied, this is but one sort of matter. There is but one intelligent soul, though it seems to divide itself. We are united by a common partcipation in the same intelligence. You have forgotten that the soul of each of us is s god who had emanated from the supreme being.

Just as bodies after a brief sojourn on earth become change and at last dissolved so they may make way for others, so do souls after their sojourn in the air become changed as they return to the fertile bosom of universal reason. Just as all seas belong to the element of water. One and the same reason gives light to them all, just as the sun gives light to the earth and ocean .

Iam the soul in all

Iam the dust in the sunlight; iam the ball of the sun. Iam the mist of morning, the breath of evening. Iam the spark in the stone, the gleam of gold in the metal. The rose and the nightingale drunk with it's fragrance.

Iam the chain of being, the circle of the spheres, the scale of creation, the rise and fall. Iam what is and is not
Iam the soul in all.

Placing true spirituality

The more advanced and learned a society, the more complex and higher it is in the sense of being more all-embracing in it's religious ideals. Consequently, the expression of spirituality of the individual in some elements of society may appear to be more lofty in camparison with a perceived lower culture, but the inner subjective impulse of response to what is felt as the spiritual motivation may be no greater in one culture or individual, than in another.

Experiencing the Absolute.

The classical Greek Philosophy Aristotle is reupted to have once said" The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This is easy to uderstand for example when we have two wheels, a handlebar, saddle, frame, chain, bolts and other related parts lying on the floor before us. they are a jumble of parts now and of little use individually. But one assembled the become a single object of great utility, namely , a bicycle, a machine we can use to ride far and wide at speeds much faster than working. The finished bicycle therefore is greater than the sum of its parts.

In its entirety, existence is comprised of the cosmic, the immaterial plane, and the material plane. from Aristotle's viewpoint, the Absolute can be considered as the sum total of these separate existences and is therefore greater than the sum of the individual existences it is composed of. it is obvious that experiencing the Absolute isn't going to be a trival matter. But just as we can effectively experience simple examples of perfection such as those of mathematical axioms like 4+4 =8, we can simillary experience the ABSOLUTE IN small doses.


Experience is the child of knowledge. when knowledge of a particular event manifests to our physical consciousness, we gain experience of that "kwonledge."

1, Experience of perfection concern events mainly of the material plane.

2, Experiences of the Absolute are more applicable to events on the immmaterial plane.

to be cognisant of knowledge from the Absolute we have to gain experiences such as concentration, contemplation and meditation which provide a bridge between the planes of our consciousness.


REM AND MEDITATION
There is a meditative techique we can employ to our advantage that has much in common with the phenomenon of rapid eye movement during sleep. Scientists are aware that during our sleeping periods a certain type of dreaming occurs which is associated with rapid eye movement (REM). This is indicative of a vivid dream state which we experience as if we were awake and which may readily be recalled upon awakening.
This gives us a clue as to what we should be aiming for in order to raise the level of our outer consciousness to the cosmic plane, our preparation firstly involves the use of concentration techniques such as performing whole-body relation and quieting of the physical aspect of our mind/brain. We then move on to comtemplation, though at this stage most students continue with whole-body relation and mind. i would suggest at this point that relaxing f=the facial muscles, eyes and eyelids are of paramount importance over other parts of the body, so as to bring about REM activity. Alternatively. feel the muscles of the forehead, eyes and eyelides relax.
THis REm should occur involuntarily. we can't try and twitch our eyes in order to induce REM, nor can we observe when ren occurs.
our consciousness must be gently focused on contemolating and receiving any knowledge relevant to the experience we have in mind. No attempt should be made to analyse whatever insights we receive while in this partial-meditative state. Know gained should be mentally noted brifly but written down as soon as the execise is over.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
By its nature, experience of the Absoulte is more of a personal event compared to that of experiencing perfection. for example a student on the path may find the experience akin to an initiation ceremony. While in a meditative awareness that something special is about to happen as the student is conscious of the presence of superior personalities" and is about to receive knowledge that will be of much benefit to his or her progress on the path.
Other ways of assisting us to experience the Absolute is to seek knowledge from those highly developed personalities who have experienced it already. for example, the master Jesus taught us the prayer: ' Our Father, who art in Heaven..." in terms of the Absolute, the phrase "Our Father" signifies "the whole" of which we are part. this means that we are intimately and spiritually connected to all life, including animals.

AXIOMS OF KNOWLEDGE
Here are some examples of knowledge from the Absolute gleaned and bequeathed to us by the indian sage and mystic Mahatma Gandhi:

1. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service of others.

2. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

3. To give service to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand
heads bowed in prayer.

4. Happiness is when your thoughts, worlds and actions are in harmony.


There are many more statements of wisdom like these from sages and "holy" persons throughout history, and it is through these axioms of knowledge that we can experience the absolute by our own contemplation and meditations on them.

The Guest.

We have all experience the wonderful warmth of being a guest in someone's home. Equally, we know the deep satisfaction of having been a host or hostee offering our hospitality to another person. There is a genuine give and take when a visitor is welcome into the home, an exchange replete with great meaning and significance in all cultures down through the ages.

Consider for a moment your own home, with you as a guest residing within. the house provides you with shelter and warmth and a place from which to operate.In retune, you are the very life within that house.

What about your own body, the "Temple of the Soul?' Is it not also a house, a dwelling place for a very important guset? The house that shelters us, made of stone, brick or wood, is obviously not conscious or aware of our presence within its walls. But we are endowed with the gift of consciousness and self-awareness on both the mundane and spiritual levels,and should be aware of the quest residing within us.

We may sense the presensce of a " still small voice"(inner quiet) in Hebrew kol dernama daka sometimes referred to as the inner self or the master within. We may even have begun to develop a relationship with this presence. but are we using the consciousness we have been given to truly know the inner Guest?

In Hebrew, the word for guest is ore'ach, which also means " visitor, path, the way, the traveller on the path," in Arabic, the word is oushipz means "visitor" or the "holy or honoured guest."

HONOURED GUEST
The idea of the honoured guest has been carried with us since ancient times as part of our human heritage. in the Hebrew tradition there is a saying, " He who has fed a stranger may have fed an angel."
We see an example of this in the bible, when three quests appear to Abraham learns from these" messengers" that he and his wife will have a son, even though they are both old and Sarah had been barren for many years. The story of Abraham symbolises the high stature of the guest as a divine messenger. Surely every guest brings a message and should be received with the same reverence that Abraham had for his visitors.

Let us now consider the less obvious meanings of the Hebrew and Aramaic word for guest such as the path, the way, the traveller on the path," In the bible, Jesus is quoted as saying " iam the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6). We know that Jesus and many other great teachers like Moses, Buddha and the prophet Mohammed lived their lives as examples, pointing the way for others to follow. They were also wanderers themselves and " travellers on the path," like moving, focal points, spiritual reference points of living paradox.

What then about the master within, the "I AM" that dwells in our bodily temple, formed by cellular bricks of light? it too is a guest, a messenger from the cosmic and deserving of our highest respect. The guest residing in each of us is a part of the great cosmic soul and therefore also represents the path or the way. It is by keeeping our inner ear tuned to the silent self, our inner eye focused on the invisible guide, that we are directed on our proper course.


THE MASTER WITHIN

And, like the great avatars whose lives have inspired us, the master within is also a traveller. This traveller comes to us from afar, entering the body with the first breath. It carries nothing in the way of material gifts, but brings to us the richness of a knowledge more vast than we can imagine, a knowledge drawn from every corner of the universe.

Now that we begin to recognise our quest, how do we attune with the holy presence within? first, we must learn to be like nature..,ready, grounded, still and silent; for it is in the stillness and silence that the master within is revealed, and only to the one who is waiting and ready to receive with an open heart. It may take some time for us to reach this state of receptvity. In preparation, we must keep a watchful eye on all enters our "house" and all that rediate out from it, so that ours will be a temple worthy of the presence of the inner guest.

Each thought that knocks at the door of the mind should be examined and only the purest allowed to enter. Similarly each word we utter shouls pass through three holy gates:truth,necessity and kindness. our actions too must be constructive and harmonious sot hat we may prove ourselves, to ourselves, as deserving of the master within. in preparing ourselves for attunement with the inner self, we are reminded that the personal quest resides in all other beings as well. There may be many "houses" but only one guest: many bodies, but the same one Soul expressing itself in a myriad of special ways, like the many petals of our beloved rose, or the many rays of the one sun, the source of light of our solar system.

When two houses, two bodies, two beings, face one another, they may recognise the same guest looking out through the windows of the soul," in the constant reflection, the Inner Self is ever manifesting. That is why we are instructed in the ancient texts to " welcome everyone with joy," for to welcome a fellow man is to welcome the shekina ( Devine presence)" says the midrash. in the Jewish tradition, this is called "The Holy Meeting."

What bether encouragement could we hope for, what greater security than to know that the all-embracing consciouness of the Cosmic is everywhere and in everything? we need only direct the questioning mind to this great fount of wisdom in order to draw from its infinite consciousness the message that we need at any given time.

EXPANDING CONSCIOUSNESS
To do this regiures that we expand our personal" little self" view to include the guest residing in all beings and in all things. With a heart that know how to wait, we gradually extend our boundaries far beyond the pysical, mental and emotional definitions of self.Only in this way can we partake of the whole.

But a word of caution from our brethrenm the sufis! "dont make friend with an elephant trainer unless there is space in your living room for an elephant!" or " trust in God, but tie your camel first." Fortunately, the metaphysical teaching guide us step by step through our unfoldment; each phase perfactly designed so we are able to gradually embrace a larger universal view, our consciousness expanding in its own time.

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We experience disharmony only when we cut ourselves off from the perfect connectedness of all creation, and this is obvious to the true student. The Guest residing within us and around us is our constant reminder of our right place in the cosmic scheme, ever affirming our true sense of belonging and purpose. It is by attuning with our Greater Self, through a proper word and proper act, that all health and harmony are restored.

When we stop to reflect, we see that the Guest is the very life within us, just as we are the life within our material homes of brick, stone and wood. The Guest keeps the eternal flame of life burning in our house, radiant and resplendent. We behold the same light shining within every other house. It is the fire of love, a jewelled lamp in the window of every dwelling to welcome the weary traveller. There is a prfound saying: "if it is dark enough, one candle is plenty.' may the light, life and love of the Guest guide us on our journey and remind us that our real home is the whole universe, our destination, the infinite.

Immortal In Essence

We are immortal in essence , our goal is to become aware of this and to act accordingly.

To do so we have no other choice than to go deep within our innermost self, within our inner temple; to contemplate beauty and to receive eternal knowledge.

The Sound Of Eternity

once, long ago, i heard the sea, steady and rhythmical, washing over the rocks, keeping time with the movement of life and death in all of nature. As the water ebbed and flowed, the told of all creation, everlasting and beautiful, and their message was deep and unforgettable, for it spoke to the soul.

Now, in the stillness and quiet of the mountains, i hear the same soft message in the whispering of the wind in the pines. Now it is the ebb and flow of the mists, which arrive gently and slowly over the snow-capped peaks and down into the valleys. Or in the hot desert wind that moves steadily toward the plains, never ceasing its faith humming as it travels over the land.

Tress in the forest may fall, summer birds may come and go, friends may vanish and all things change before our eyes. But always there is the steady sound of eternity, whether whispered in the wind or shouted in the waves, or seen in the message of flowers, birds, tress, rock and rivers. life and death are but two side of the same coin. They are expression of the eternal…, spoken in brief lessons so we may understand, and not lose faith or hope in the daily struggle with ourselves and the world.

One who reads the book of nature reads of all nation and people. One comes to know the God of one’s heart and the God of hearts are the same, and to accept light, life and love everlasting.

Peace Profound

Rev Dr Summer Nwokie Msc.D, Ph.D, FRC.